I do not have any slowdown/crash issue with this game. I think your problem is more related to ATI/AMD hardware, crossover builds have some "hacks" to speedup game when using ATI card (problems due to very bad GNU/Linux driver).

Concerning the pad issue, wireless pads have very few chance to work...Even wired Xbox360 pad work only with some games.

Using keyboard/mouse to play game with wine is still the best way, but things goes better with time :)